Born the King of Angels
by Solstice Zero
Summary: Ianto drops in on Jack in an unexpected time and place. Christmas, 1941. Albion Hospital.


**A/N:** This was a Christmas gift for the lovely Flinch-Hayward.

* * *

_Incident Report:_

_You'd think by now they've worked here long enough to know that _Shiny Is Dangerous, _but that apparently isn't the case. Ianto was sent back to 1941 by a piece of alien tech we found this morning at a crash site. He says that the time he was gone from 2008 was the same as the time he spent in 1941; about thirty minutes. It's a shame. He would've looked great in a uniform._

_Captain Jack Harkness_

They'd decorated the ward in red and green. The man closest to the door wore a Santa hat and a smile as the nurse passed him, Ianto trailing in her wake. Glenn Miller bled softly into the quiet hospital air from a radio at someone's bedside; "Moonlight Serenade", a tune that Ianto had heard countless times from Jack's office in the early hours of the morning. Most of the men were sleeping; striped hospital-issue pyjamas, rough blankets, cot beds. It was the way that Jack had always described it, always described wartime hospitals. The smell of sickness, the smell of fear, the sound of sleeping, of breathing, of quiet or loud panic. The sound of Glenn Miller from a tinny old radio.

The nurse stopped at the edge of a bed and gestured at the patient there, looking back at Ianto. "There you are," she said quietly. "Please don't take too long, Mr Smith. He's in a very bad way."

Ianto shook his head with a soft smile. "I won't take very long at all, nurse. Thank you very much."

She nodded, then walked off down the center aisle of the cots, her shoes clicking on the linoleum. Ianto went around to the side of the bed and pulled a chair close, sitting down. The man in the bed said, "Smith, huh? I had a friend who went by that name."

"Did you?" Ianto asked.

"I did." The man turned his head. There was a large bandage wrapped around his eyes. Beneath the white were vestiges of red. His skin was almost translucent, cheekbones prominent in his nearly skeletal face. "You wouldn't happen to be a doctor, would you?"

Ianto shook his head, even though he knew that the man couldn't see him. "Can't say that I am. Sorry about that."

The man sighed. "Don't worry about it. Too good to be true, anyway. She said he wouldn't be around for a lot longer yet."

Ianto was tempted to ask _who said_, but he reined it in. He sat forward in the chair, leaning toward the bed. "How are you feeling, Captain Harkness?"

A laugh. "Call me Jack. No one gorgeous is allowed to call me 'Captain Harkness'. You sound gorgeous."

"Oh, I am, believe me."

Jack laughed again. "I can always tell, visible or not. Gorgeous is a sound, like bells." Jack settled back into his pillows, half-face turned up to the ceiling. "It's Christmas. We're big on bells right now."

Ianto glanced around the ward. Jack couldn't see the paltry decorations; the tinsel, sagging at the ends of the beds, wound between the metal bars of the frames, the paper chains half-clinging to the ceiling. It was just as well. "How did this happen to you, Jack?"

Jack kept looking sightlessly up at the ceiling, his breath labored but only barely, only enough to make him sound slightly out of breath. "German bomb. I got a few of my men out of the way, the flash blinded me and the shrapnel went right through." He turned his head toward Ianto. "Nicked some pretty important stuff, I think."

"You'll be all right, though," Ianto said.

Jack shrugged. "I'm gonna die. It happens."

Ianto smiled. He struggled to keep it out of his voice. "You're very nonchalant about that idea."

"Well, I'm very practical." Jack grinned. "Why're you here, Mr Smith?"

Ianto paused. Why was he here? An accident. Pure luck to land outside of the hospital where he knew Jack lay, blind and dying, on Christmas Eve 1941. Torchwood records. But that wasn't a good answer. "I'm visiting you. Don't you like visitors?"

"Well, it's usually people I know. Do I know you?"

"Not as such," Ianto said, and smiled at the immediate frown that twisted Jack's lips. "But I'm a friend. You've nothing to worry about."

"And I'm supposed to trust that, sitting here and not being able to see you?"

"Well, yes," Ianto said. "What more could I do to you? You've said it yourself. You're dying already."

"Thanks for bringing it up again." Jack's frown faded, though, and the easy grin returned. "Am I allowed to guess where I know you from, or should I just let it remain a mystery?"

"I suggest the latter option." Ianto smiled. "Consider me a Christmas angel."

"I don't believe in angels, Mr Smith."

"Well, neither do I, Captain Harkness, but that's where we're at right now."

"Still too gorgeous to call me 'captain'."

"Then I think John will do fine."

"It isn't even your real name. Could you have chosen a faker fake name?"

"Well, I considered Jeff Fakerton, but it didn't have the ring of sophistication I was looking for."

Jack laughed, and it immediately devolved into a coughing fit. Other patients stirred around them as the fit worsened, and Ianto was out of his chair in a moment, leaning Jack forward and rubbing his back as he worked through it, his face turning red with the effort and the lack of oxygen. Finally it ended, and he caught Ianto's hand in his own as he fell back against the pillows, looking exhausted. "I'm dying from a lot of things," he said quietly.

Ianto held Jack's hand in both of his, sitting on the edge of the bed. He rubbed a thumb across Jack's knuckles, back and forth.

Jack sighed. "I was wrong. About the bells."

"Not a gorgeous sound?"

"Not tonight," Jack said, and turned his head as though to look out of a window. "They aren't allowed to ring tonight, not like they usually do on Christmas. Ringing bells mean that the enemy is here." He sighed. "Not a gorgeous sound. How quickly a meaning can change from something good to something terrible."

"They'll ring again," Ianto said. "Ring properly, for the good reasons."

Jack nodded. "They will. We'll be all right. It's just the wait that tears us up."

Jack's grip on Ianto's hand loosened slightly, and Ianto looked at him. His frown was thoughtful below the thick bandage. It was an expression that Ianto had seen him wear before, many times, recognizable even without the eyes. Jack was dying. He was fading.

Ianto leaned forward, still holding his hand. "Jack," he said quietly. "I'm here."

Jack took a slow breath in. He let it out. "We'll have the bells again," he said faintly. "We'll have them back for good."

"We will."

Jack's fingers moved in Ianto's. "Thank you," he said.

"Always, Jack." Ianto raised the hand to his lips. "Always."

Jack took a breath. He held it for a moment. He let it out.

There was one eternal moment. There was another.

No rise of Jack's chest. He was gone.

Ianto leaned across and pressed his lips to Jack's, lightly. He placed the hand he held gently over the other, then slipped off of the bed. He stood at the foot of it, watching for a moment. On the radio, bright voices sang in echoes, "_Come and behold him, born the king of angels, o come let us adore him."_ Ianto began to walk down the aisle toward the door. "_O come let us adore him."_ He paused, his hand on the knob_. "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord."_ There was a gasp of breath, and he was gone.


End file.
